That they were drawn from the Jewish prophecies is improbable; for the books of the Cumaan Sibyl fell into the hands of the Romans, if we may credit their historians, in a very early age, when they were an obscure, inconsiderable people, without any connections in the East, and long before any part of the Old Testament was extant in the Greek language. And yet after the first settlement of the Jews in Canaan, I am persuaded that true prophets were nowhere to be found but in the Jewish church. These prophecies, then, that were current in the Gentile world in later ages, since they were neither forgeries of the heathen priests, nor founded on the Jewish prophecies, must have been derived from prophecies more ancient than the Jewish. They were fragments, (mutilated, perhaps, and otherwise corrupted,) but they were fragments of the most ancient prophecies of the patriarchal ages. By what means fragments of the prophecies of the patriarchal ages might be preserved among idolatrous nations is the difficulty to be explained.

To clear this question it will be necessary to consider, what was the actual state of revealed religion in the interval between the first appearance of idolatry in the world and the institution of the Jewish church by Moses.

I shall show you, that though the beginning of idolatry through man's degeneracy was earlier than might have been expected, its progress, through God's gracious interposition, was slower than is generally believed that for some ages after it began the world at large enjoyed the light of Revelation in a very considerable degree: that, while the corruption was gradually rising to its height, Providence was taking measures for the general restoration at the appointed

season that the gift of prophecy was vouchsafed long before the institution of the Mosaic church: that letters being in use in the East long before that epoch, the ancient prophecies were committed to writing; and that, by the mysterious operation of that Providence which directs all temporary and partial evil to everlasting and universal good, the blind superstition of idolaters was itself made the means of preserving these writings, not pure, but in a state that might serve the purpose of preparing the Gentiles for the advent of our Lord, and maintaining a religious veneration for them.

I am then to consider what was the actual state of revealed religion, between the first appearance of idolatry in the world and the institution of the Mosaic church by Moses.

First, It is obvious that the worship of Jehovah was originally universal, without any mixture of idolatry among the sons of Adam for some time after the creation; and that it became universal again among the descendants of Noah for some ages after the flood. It is obvious, that so long as this was universal, the promises would be universally remembered; both the general promises of man's redemption and the particular promises of blessings to certain families; and when the defection to idolatry began, these particular promises would be the means of retarding its progress, and of preserving the worship of the true God in the descendants of those to whom these promises were made, for some ages, at least, after the revolt of the rest of mankind.

And, on the other hand, wherever the true worship kept its ground the promises could not sink into oblivion.

Thus I conceive the promises to Abraham would for some time be remembered, not only in Isaac's family, and in the twelve tribes of Arabians descending from Ishmael, but among the nations that arose from his sons by his second wife, Keturah; and these, if I mistake not, peopled the whole country that lay between the Arabian and the Persian Gulf, and occupied considerable tracts in Africa, and in the upper part of Asia near the Caspian Sea; and the memory of these promises, in all these nations, would for several ages keep the true religion in some degree alive. So the earlier promises to Shem, contained in Noah's prophetic benediction, would be for some time remembered among his posterity; and accordingly we find from ancient history, that the Persians, the Assyrians, and the people of Mesopotamia, the offspring of Shem, through his sons Elam, Ashur, and Aram, were among the last nations that fell into any gross idolatry.

Now, if we are right in these principles (and I think they are principles in which it is impossible to be greatly in the wrong, for the memory which I suppose of blessings promised to the head of a family, with which some degree of veneration for the Deity from whom they came and by whose providence they were to be accomplished, that is, some degree of the true religion would be inseparably connected the me mory, I say, of such blessings seems but a necessary effect of that complacency which men naturally feel in the notion that they have a claim, or that they` stand within a probable expectation of a claim, to hereditary honour and distinctions); but if we are right in the supposition of some long remembrance of the promises, and a preservation of the true religion

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among the descendants of the patriarchs to whom the promises were given, the first defection from the worship of the true God could not be universal, it could only be partial. And the effect of a partial defection would be, that all the nations whose loyalty to the sovereign Lord remained unshaken would take measures to resist the corruption and maintain among themselves the true worship of the true God.

Something of this kind seems to have happened early in the antediluvian world. "In the days of Enos, men began to call themselves by the name of Jehovah." At this time, pious men took alarm at the beginning of idolatry in the reprobate family of Cain, and formed themselves in a distinct party, and took a name of distinction to themselves as worshippers of the true God. They called themselves by the name of Jehovah, as we now call ourselves by the name of Christ; and they probably made profession of the true religion by some public rites.

As human nature is in all ages much the same, something similar is likely to have happened upon the first revival of idolatry after the flood. The measures that were used for the preservation of the true religion were likely to be some one or all of these.

If any of the nations that adhered to the true God had in these ages the use of letters, (and the use of letters in the East, I am persuaded, is of much greater antiquity than is generally supposed,) they would commit to writing, and collect in books what tradition had preserved of the beginning of the world and the promises to their ancestors. These books would be committed to some public custody, and preserved as a sacred treasure.

That something of this kind was done, appears, I

think, from fragments which still remain of ancient Eastern histories, which in certain particulars of the deluge, and in the dates which they assign to the rise of the most ancient kingdoms, are wonderfully consonant with the Mosaic records.

Again, the most interesting passages of the ancient history of the world, particularly the promises, they would put into verse, that they might more easily be committed to memory. It would be part of the education of the youth of both sexes, and of all conditions, to make them get these verses by heart. They would be set to music, and sung at certain stated festivals. That this was done (that it could hardly be omitted) is highly probable, because it was the universal practice of all the nations of antiquity to record in song whatever they wished should be long remembered, the exploits of their warriors, their lessons of morality, their precepts of religion, and their laws. They would institute public rites, in which the history of the old world, and of the privileged patriarchs in particular, would be commemorated in certain enigmatical ceremonies. In these there would be allusions to the deluge, to the ark, to the raven and the dove, to Noah's intoxication, to the different behaviour of his three sons upon that occasion, to Abraham's entertainment of his three guests from heaven, to his battle with the confederate kings, to the offering of Isaac, to the exile of Hagar and her son, and other parts of patriarchal history. That something of this kind was done, appears, I think, by manifest allusions that we find to some of these particulars in the religious rites of some ancient nations, even after they became idolaters. These institutions would, perhaps, in the end be the means of